vendredi 31 mai 2013

6 weeks of mail

Hello hello!
As I abandoned my blog for 6 weeks, this "weekly mail update" will be a bit special because instead of just showing you what I received and sent the past 7 days, I will show you the incoming mail of the past 6 weeks!  (and the two outgoing letters of the week, too). The unbelievable thing is that although I was owing (and still owe) a letter to almost all my penpals, I still got mail. Okay, less than I would have receive in a "normal" period, but still. I was expecting empty mailbox times, and in fact there was no week when my mailbox remained completely empty. As a consequence, my to-reply folder currently looks like that:
Scary, uh? Buuut... I am on holidays and my writing mood is back, so I should be able to make it through the pile :)

So what did I receive?
Fisrt, 12 letters :)

From Anne Mette, Denmark (someone stole the stamp! D: )
From Ramona, Germany
From Jenny, Netherlands
From Almante, Lithuania (much tea! *-*)
From Laura, USA (tea again ^^)
From Teresa, USA
From Shelby, USA again
From Bree, Malaysia
From Ksenia, Ukraine
From Destiny, USA (it had been one year since her last letter!)
From Tanja, Germany (spring themed, although it's rather Autumn here x_x)
And from Kate, Czech Republic (with many nice extras!)
My mailbox has also been fed with 3 swaps...
Bookmark swap from Tinne, Belgium
Secret Santa swap. My partner for this swap never sent the package so the organizer angeled it. Thanks again to her! (it's a bit weird to receive a Christmas package in May, but still nice ^^)
April surprise Swap from Eva, Lithuania
Aaand... last but not least, I also got two other envelopes...
One was from Aya from "Travel by postcards and letters" who sent me a package because I won her Fumi no hi project (you can read about in on her blog).
I wish I could show you every single thing she sent, but I won't, this post is long enough already! So just two pics ;)

Random little things
Envelopes, letter papers and more deco-tape
Thanks again, Aya, for all this lovely stuff! ♥

The last piece of mail, eventually, arrived today: bookmarks I received from the owner of the online bookclub I'm part of. Aren't they lovely? And she made them herself!

Now for the outgoing mail... As you know, I was on a letter break these past weeks and I only started writing again last week-end, so I only have two letters to show:
To Michi, Poland
To Audrey, Germany
You made it through this post? Hehe, congrats!! I hope I didn't bore you to death will all these pics ;) 

Have a lovely week-end and see you soon
Love, Tári

PS: Just a little reminder that from July Google Friend Connect will stop working, so if you want to continue being updated of what's happening on my blog, don't forget to follow me with Bloglovin'

lundi 27 mai 2013

I'm alive!


Hello folks! Do you remember me? It's been a while since I last posted here. The reason is that I decided to take a break from the whole penpalling thing a little over a month ago. I really had too much pressure on my shoulders because of uni work - I had to write my thesis, take all exams, and work on two groups projects. So, as you can guess, much work and much stress, and on top of that, my constantly growing pile of to-reply mail added to the stress I was already feeling. I obliged myself to write every time I had a free minute and in the end I was starting to consider penpalling as a duty, which definitely isn't the way it should be, don't you agree? I therefore came to the conclusion that I'd rather completely stop penpalling until I am in a writing mood again. Luckily, I have very understanding penpals who supported me all way through. Thank you my dear friends, if you ever read these lines. I LOVE YOU!!! *kisses and hugs* ♥

In the meantime I dedicated my free time to what I really felt like dedicating it too : that is reading - I discovered the wonderful world of books forums and online book clubs, I even started to run a blog about my readings (you can find it here, but it's all in French though), which was something I was thinking about for a while but I never went for it before because I thought I wouldn't have time to handle it... because of my penpalling activity.
I also spend much time relaxing and doing nothing, which is the best thing to do in my opinion during stressful periods - just "emptying" your brain and forget everything you still have to do for a couple of hours.
Another thing I did during my non-writing period was crafting. I'm not good at it, really, but I wanted to give my (very poor) skills a new chance. I made bookmarks for all my penpals, and I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out to be, in fact! ^.^ When the first one has reached it's destination, I'll show you a picture. I'm also starting a new project which will be a present for my mom for Mother's Day (it was yesterday, but I'll give her her present late...) No picture again, because I'm not done with it yet AND I want it to be a complete surprise for my mother. I don't think she reads my blog, but who knows... :D

AND! The great news, the reason for which I'm writing this post, in fact, is that finally, I'm back into letter writing! I spent the week-end writing and realized how much I missed it. Still I don't think I'll become the fast writer I used to be - I don't want to ever consider penpalling as a duty again any more! I have other hobbies and I now have accepted that there's no reason to prioritize letter writing if it's not what I really feel like doing. But I'm back into the penpalling world and I'm happy about it. I couldn't live without my penpals (even when I was in a writing break we still were in contact thanks to Facebook and such social medias), they're my life! ♥

From next Friday on I'll start again with my weekly mail updates. Did you miss them? :)

Love, Tári